A minister belonging to a group protesting the Trump administration’s budget proposals and health care bill, is arrested during in the Russell Senate Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2017. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded to reports on Tuesday evening from journalists on Capitol Hill, who alleged that Capitol Police were blocking reporters’ access as they tried to cover healthcare protests.

Reporters from the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, the New York Post, and the Washington Post all tweeted from the Senate Gallery that reporters were being prevented from covering the protests.

As nearly 100 demonstrators were arrested for protesting the vote to move to a debate on Trumpcare, which would cut health care coverage for up to 32 million Americans, police told reporters not to document the scene.

Sergeant at Arms just backed reporters off, called it a 'crime scene.' Protesters have been escorted away.

As the ACLU notes in its online guide for members of the media, “When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police…Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.”

The intimidation of journalists has escalated on Capitol Hill in recent weeks as the Senate has inched toward voting on Trumpcare. A female reporter was kicked out of the House Speaker’s lobby in June for not adhering to the House’s dress code. And after years of being permitted to interview senators in Senate building hallways, reporters were told in June that interviews would no longer be allowed. (The Senate Rules Committee reversed course on this rule following an uproar.)

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Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It’s the same people that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It’s the same people who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn’t carpet bomb Libya and Syria.